Thirty Years – 1922-1952
The Story of the Communist Movement in Canada

CHAPTER SIXTEEN: A New Party of Communists

ON JUNE 13, 1943, party leaders from all over Canada
gathered in conference in Toronto again, this time to plan the
establishment of a new party of Communists. Lieut. William
Kardash, M.L.A., of Winnipeg, was elected chairman; T, C.
Sims of Toronto, secretary. Following a day of intensive
discussion, the conference adopted a declaration of purpose(1) of
which the following excerpts are characteristic:

"Humanity has paid a terrible price in, blood and treasure,
shattered hopes and human misery, because Hitler was temporarily
successful in winning the sympathy of powerful interests in the
democratic countries and in duping governments with his fable of
the 'Spectre of Communism.'
"Today, no honest man will defend the imperialist appeasement
policies of Chamberlain which helped to make Hitler master of
Europe. All democratic Canadians applauded Premier King's
repudiation of Munich, as Britishers applauded the similar repudiation by
the Churchill government.
"History has proven that we Canadian Communists were much
closer to reality on these questions than were the editors of the Toronto
Telegram and Financial Post; and that we are far more correct in
our fight for the real interests of the Canadian people than were many
high-placed personages whose names we forbear to mention here in
the interests-of national unity.
"We Communists have fought consistently for democratic unity
of French and English-speaking Canada. We have upheld the right
of the French-Canadian people to full national equality in all spheres
of economic, social and political life, and first and foremost in labor's
struggle on behalf of wage equality for Quebec. We were able to
make a notable contribution to the defence of Canadian democracy
by our systematic exposure of the treasonable activities of the
Nazi-Fascist network operating in Quebec, by our struggle against the
Duplessis Padlock Law and our consistent support of the growing
democratic trends in French-Canadian life.
"We are not called upon, either by history, the laws of Canada,
or the interests of our fellow-Canadians, to renounce our Communist
convictions or the proud historic name to which those convictions
give us the right. Canadian Communists have fought for those
convictions. On the public platform, in city councils, in the trade
unions and the factories, in the movements of the unemployed, on
the field of battle in defence of democracy in Spain, in the plebiscite
campaign, the battle for production, Communists have defended the
convictions they hold dear.
"We are Communists. We have a part to play in the winning
of the war and the building of Canada. We can play that part fully
only if we are free to put forth and fight publicly for our proposals
and policies on every question of national concern.
"...this conference constitutes itself a provisional national
committee to initiate the work of drawing together the supporters of
Communist policies, to prepare a draft program and constitution for
their consideration, and to organize a constituent convention to
establish such a party of Communists.
"Unite your forces in one powerful Dominion-wide party through
which Canadian Communists shall play their full and rightful
democratic role in shaping the destiny of this, our wide and rich and lovely land."

The National Constituent Convention convened in Toronto
on August 21, for two days of intensive and historic sessions.
In an atmosphere of inspired idealism and high enthusiasm
600 delegates established a new national party. From among
numerous proposals they chose the name, "Labor-Progressive
Party." It should be noted that in periods of illegality the term
Labor-Progressive frequently had been the banner of Communist
candidates. Shortly before the convention A. A. MacLeod
and J. B. Salsberg had been elected in the Ontario
provincial constituencies of Bellwoods and St. Andrew, Toronto,
as Labor-Progressive candidates, and Fred Rose had been
elected in the federal constituency of Cartier, Montreal.

The keynote speech delivered to the convention by Tim
Buck(2) reiterated the reasons why immediate organization of the
new party bad been undertaken. He pointed out that the
majority of Canadians were dissatisfied with the Dominion
government's conduct of the War effort, Its evasion of
fundamental isues, its systematic favors to powerful corporations
that were making unprecedented profits, the steadily increasing
burdens upon the working people, its systematic concessions to
pro-fascist elements while maintaining a rigid hard-faced
attitude towards labor. "We place all our emphasis upon the
supreme need to win the war," he declared, but ". . . peace
will bring new problems.... It is no wonder that millions of
people are asking 'What sort of world shall we build when the
fighting stops?' The reply that springs to the lips of every
progressive man and woman is 'It must not be the sort of world
that we left behind us in 1939'."

At that time, while the British and American governments
under the influence of Winston Churchill were delaying the
invasion of Europe, it was already evident that hard fighting on
the part of the progressive forces would be required to prevent
the imperialists from restoring the sort of world that we had
known in the 1930's. Tim Buck pointed out that the significance
of the grand alliance headed by Britain, the Soviet Union
and the United States went much further than military
cooperation; it marked the possibility of a new era of history. It
proved the practicability of intimate collaboration between
the first socialist state and the great capitalist states. "Canada
will go forward in peace and democracy to a higher life, if the
unity of Britain, the United States and the U.S.S.R. is maintained...
The alternative is reversion to a world struggle for
colonial domination, for trade, for territorial advantage-the
old imperialist struggle for power."

Tim Buck warned the delegates that "even while this
convention is in progress there are signs which are cause for grave
concern." He then quoted numerous examples of sabotage by
the capitalist governments, including the Canadian governments,
of understandings for co-ordinated action by the members
of the grand alliance. Accredited diplomatic representatives
of the Soviet government were being excluded from areas
under Anglo-U.S. control, the heads of governments in exile
were being prevented from leaving Britain to visit the Soviet
Union, several of the governments in exile were protesting
against the thinly disguised preparations for establishment of
Anglo-U.S. military control of their countries after the war.
There was indeed serious cause for concern at the signs that
the imperialists were planning to scuttle cooperation between
the capitalist and. socialist states at the first opportunity. As
Charlie Sims was to write immediately after the convention:

"Powerful forces in Canada and the United States are already
working for such disruption. These interests, represented most definitely
by powerful investment bankers' associations are bent upon developing
a new era of imperialist supremacy and finance-capitalist exploitation.
"These are the interests which strive to counterpose a British-United
States alliance to the Anglo-Soviet-American coalition. Their aim is
not that of a lasting peace through collective security and freedom
for all peoples, but an imperialist peace in which United States
imperialism, with British imperialism as a junior partner, will
dominate the world. The more blatant protagonists of this idea openly
declare their aim to 'marry the wealth and power of the United States
to the territory and resources of the British Empire.'
"If the aims of these interests, which would render impossible the
unity of nations visualized in the Atlantic Charter, should become the
objectives of foreign policy after the war, the present war will have
been fought and won in vain."(3)

The theme of the combined need to strengthen the working-class
movement, win higher wages and other concessions from
the capitalist class while doing everything possible to ensure
victory in the war and to make the war-time unity a force for
continued democratic progress in the peace, was carried forward
in the party program, which declared unequivocally:

"The Labor-Progressive Party has no interest apart from the
general interests of the working class, which are inseparable from the
real interests of the nation as a whole. Fighting in the front ranks of
the working class at each stage of historical development, the party
defends the immediate interests of working men and women and,
while so doing, defends their future interests.
"The Labor-Progressive Party is dedicated to the task of educating
and organizing the Canadian workers, farmers and middle-class
people, in the course of a consistent struggle for democracy, to the
end that the majority of the Canadian people shall, by their own
decision, achieve the great aim of socialism."

Pointing out that the focal issue in the problem of unity
was that of relationships between the two nations, French and
English-speaking Canadians, the program declared:

"It is the great movement of labor now arising in Quebec which,
in alliance with all other anti-fascist forces, will give increasing
political leadership to the anti-trust, anti-imperialist sentiment of the
masses of the Quebec people, in the struggle for national unity and
people's victory, for full realization of the democratic, national
aspirations of the French Canadians."

In this connection the following should be added. The fight
to build a mass party of Communists in Quebec, in the face of
the Padlock Law, the vicious fascist efforts of the Duplessis
government to suppress the labor movement and the anti-working-class
obscurantism of the Catholic hierarchy, is a continuing
problem, but the rapid growth of trade unionism and
the increasing influence of Marxism-Leninism in Quebec, on
the background of popular opposition to the underhand
cooperation between Duplessis and St. Laurent in selling Quebec
into bondage to United States imperialism, show that the
workers of French Canada will build their mass Communist
party. Already, the contributions of French Canada to the
Communist movement have been tremendous. Some of the
outstanding contributions to the struggle to organize the
unorganized have been made in Quebec. The great needle trades
strike, the organization Of the textile, asbestos, electrical, shoe,
and other industries, have each provided outstanding examples
of working-class militancy. The contributions of French
Canada to the development of our party has been tremendous.
From those stalwarts among the founders of the Workers'
Party, Mike and Beckie Buhay, Bella Hall, Alex Gauld, etc.,
the party organizations in Quebec have regularly contributed
talented and tested members both- to the national leadership
and numerous local leaderships of our party. While fighting
in the party for more energetic advocacy of the party's demand
for the right to full national self-determination to the people
of French Canada, the party there has made vital contributions
to the building of the Communist movement all over Canada.

Describing the grand alliance as "the harbinger of a world-wide
system of collective security in the spirit of the Atlantic
Charter," the program warned the working class that the long-term
peaceful co-existence of the socialist states and the democratic
capitalist states, expressed in the continued collaboration
of the peoples and governments of the U.S.A., Great Britain,
the U.S.S.R. and China, was the sole hope of World peace.
Emphasizing the dynamic role that the working class would
have to play in realizing that objective the program declared:

"The main task now presenting itself to the Canadian labor movement
is to step forward as the champion of the true interests of the
people. The movement for independent labor-farmer political action,
which is arising in the course of the people's war, must be strengthened
and united to carry the war to final and complete victory. The
perspective is now before the Canadian labor movement of so
consolidating its economic and political strength in coperation with the
farmers, as to elect majorities to the governments of Canada -
municipal, provincial, federal - so as to establish labor-farmer
governments which can lead the nation in effecting profound
democratic reforms in the economy and law of Canada."

The program categorically condemned the lie that the party
advocates violence as a means of political struggle. "The Labor-Progressive
Party rejects conspiracy and secrecy as political
methods and publicly proclaims its program and policy at all
times." The program continued:

"The Labor-Progressive Party categorically denounces force and
violence as a means of imposing any form of government or economic
system upon the Canadian people. Monopoly, not the labor movement,
is the breeder of force and violence. It is the means whereby groups
of anti-social, anti-democratic monopolists seek to maintain their
power after other means of intimidation and control have failed. It
is the means whereby an outworn social system seeks to perpetuate itself."

The basic position of the Communists towards violence
expressed in the above quotation, which is so regularly denied
or misrepresented by the hired propagandists of capitalism,
was emphasized by Lenin during the revolutionary crisis
preceding the great Russian Revolution in 1917. Emphasizing
the urgent necessity for the working class to take over state
power he wrote: "In order to obtain the power of the state,
the class-conscious workers must win the majority to their side.
As long as no violence is used against the masses, there is no
other road to power. We are not Blanquists; We are not in
favor of the seizure of power by a minority."(4)

The new party declared itself at its foundation the firmest
defender of the real national interests of Canada, the champion
of national unity and progress for the Canadian people:

"It seeks to instil in Canadians a deep awareness of the richness of
Canada's resources, human and material, and a pride in the great
pioneering that remains to be done. It is the champion of the closest
fraternity between Canadians of all national origins. It dedicates
itself to the flowering of Canadian culture, to the unhampered and
state-aided growth of Canadian science, technique, art, literature,
culture and education, understanding that the stimulation of all
expressions of our national spirit is at the same time a contribution to
the cultural wealth of all humanity ...
"For the achievement of these high purposes and the realization of
this vision of Canada's destiny, and in the closest unity and brotherhood
with all democratic Canadians, the Labor-Progressive Party is
established, and hereby calls on all who support the general terms of
this program to enrol in its ranks."

The above citations from the program express the fundamental
concepts of the founders of the L.P.P. The conviction that,
eventually, through their own experiences in which the
educating and organizing activities of the L.P.P. will play a vital
part, the workers of Canada will, by their own decision, achieve
the great aim of socialism. Reinforcing the principles of the
program, the constitution and the series of resolutions adopted
by the founding convention based the future work of the party
unequivocally upon the tested methods of democratic,
political education, mass organization and struggle. In the manifesto
that the convention addressed to all democratic Canadians, the
party introduced itself as follows:

"We take our part in the mighty labor-farmer movement for
independent parliamentary action now springing up as the symbol
and instrument of a greater people's wartime democracy, for sweeping
national reforms, for a happy post-war Canada and for permanent peace.
"We call on the trade unions and farm groups to build their
organizations and to come forward as part of this rising movement.
"We can look to a glorious future if the rising labor and democratic
movement is united. We look forward to the election of labor-farmer
governments which will carry through these great reforms, and which
will oppose the monopolies who hinder our country's development.
"We hail the electoral victories in Ontario, Quebec and the West
as the forerunners of such governments.
"We are a party of socialism. We have undying faith in the ability
of Canadians to achieve our true destiny of becoming a mighty
industrial nation, affording its citizens the highest living standards
in the world, living in harmony with all other peoples and possessed
of strong democratic liberties and institutions.
"The Labor-Progressive Party advocates this platform as its contribution
to a better Canada. It will cooperate with all Canadians to
achieve these great national reforms and to institute these national policies.
"Through unity to victory for progress!"

Canadian Communists were again a legal political force throughout the nation.

(1)Canada Needs a Party of Communists, published by the National Ititiative Committee to convene a Communinist Constituent Convention,
June 23, 1943, Toronto.